A lot of families think of the hulking metal box in the kitchen as "the Amana gallery" or a message center for Post-Its®, but in reality the refrigerator is one of your home's biggest consumers of electricity. The U.S. Department of Energy says that an average 16-cubic foot frost-free refrigerator, a medium-sized model, draws about 725 watts of electricity 24/7. That's about six times the power draw of a flat-screen TV, or seventy-two times the energy consumption of a clock radio. It should be clear that your refrigerator has the potential to be wasting energy -- a lot of energy. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce your fridge's appetite for power.
